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This is what I have learned about domestic terrorists and assassins by interviewing psychologists who currently work for and have worked for federal law enforcement agencies. Some of these psychologists have spent decades developing methods to identify potential attackers.

“We think it is more useful to pay attention to a person’s ability to plan and execute actions than to focus on the question of whether the subject is mentally ill or not,” said Robert A. Fein, a forensic and national security psychologist who spent more than 25 years working with the Secret Service.

The alleged Boston Marathon bombers demonstrated the ability to plan and execute an attack. They carefully planned how to make and trigger their bombs. We still have many questions about them, but one big one is whether others knew they were planning an attack but kept silent.

This is what psychologists call the “bystander effect.”

“The bystander might be a family member, a peer, a colleague, supervisor or subordinate at work,” said Fein. “In our study of school shootings, in about 80 percent of the attacks other kids knew something bad was going to happen [but the] kids who knew rarely told adults.”

Fein does not believe in profiling but rather in studying patterns of behavior. When seeking out a domestic terrorist, he says, “if he is interested in extreme ideas, it doesn’t say a whole lot because there are many people who hold or consider extreme ideas and never attack others.”

Fein and his colleagues have developed a theory of “threat assessment” through which law enforcement officials can ascertain “pre-attack behavior.”

“We encourage protectors and investigators to distinguish between persons who make threats and persons who pose threats,” Fein said. “Of great concern are persons who pose threats who never make a threat.”

No person who has ever attacked a president, Fein said, “ever communicated a direct threat to the president, the Secret Service, or to law enforcement.” The alleged Boston Marathon bombers never made a threat as far as we currently know.